Social networks and sport in the public spaces of Barcelona

This article presents some of the results from the research completed between 2005 and 2007, from the Laboratory of Social and Educational Research of INEFC, Barcelona. As the title indicates the study is concerned with the analysis of how determined urban public spaces (30) are used for sports by different social networks (62), many of which develop and/ or create for themselves a specific public space, by means of their sporting practice. The results which are presented to follow attempt to explain characteristics which are reflected by the respective social networks and sports that we encountered during the field research, what relations exist among them where more than one social network or sport share the same space, and what importance to these social networks hold for the individuals who form them.